Dems to Young Voters: Vote for us, you twerps.
June 13, 2008
Hoping to rally young voters with so called edgy ads, Democrats have, instead, portrayed them as narrow minded, intolerant, empty headed twerps. More

When the police get entrepreneurial
June 13, 2008
The economic slowdown so often portrayed as a recession is pressuring tax revenues at every level of government. More

Is the US Constitution a suicide pact after all?
June 12, 2008
The US Supreme Court has opened a Pandora's Box. More

Reza Fiyouzat
Oil and Racism

Addressing America’s “Deeper Malignancies”
by Walter C. Uhler / June 14th, 2008

If you want to know what’s wrong with the foreign policy establishment in the United States, look no further than Condoleezza Rice’s article, “The New American Realism,” published in the July/August 2008 issue of Foreign Affairs. Not only has the Council on Foreign Relations spread its pages wide open for an infamous interventionist — a lying and deceitful enabler of the Bush administration’s illegal, immoral unprovoked invasion of Iraq — it also readmitted Ms. Rice without requiring anything resembling a mea culpa for the crimes against humanity that have lowered her, the Bush administration and the United States to the …

(Full article …)

Tim Russert's Legacy--in Politics and in Life - Howard Fineman, Newsweek
Revitalized Washington Talk Shows - Howard Kurtz, Washington Post
"He Was Loving This Election" - Joe Klein, Time
Drill, McCain, Drill - Fred Barnes, Weekly Standard
The Electoral Map Won't Change - John Mercurio, National Journal
In Defense of Lobbyists - Michael Barone, US News & World Report
Welcome to the Campaign, Sen. Obama - Dan Thomasson, Seattle Post-Intel
Obama's Friedman Disciples - Naomi Klein, The Guardian
Joe Biden For Vice President? - Robert Novak, Chicago Sun-Times
Five More Months of This? - Gail Collins, New York Times
Web Gossip is Forever - Christopher Caldwell, Financial Times
Microsoft the Underdog? - Matthew DeBord, Los Angeles Times
Don't Hate the Airlines - Patrick Smith, Washington Post
Cap and Trade For Gasoline? - Jonathan Lesser, Wall Street Journal
Secularism Vs Democracy in Turkey - Pierre Atlas, RealClearPolitics
Europe Constitution Isn't Going Away - Denis MacShane, Times of London
The European Constitution is Dead - Charles Moore, Daily Telegraph
Favorable/Unfavorable: Hotline/FD: Obama +24, McCain +15

Editorials
Remembering Tim Russert - New York Daily News
Time to Put EU Treaty on Ice - Financial Times
McCain Demagogues Big Oil - New York Post
A Moment of Clarity in Baghdad - New York Times

Political News & Analysis
Russert Dies of a Heart Attack at Age 58 - Buffalo News
NBC's Tim Russert Passes Away - NBC News
McCain Denounces Detainee Ruling - Washington Post
Obama Has Plan for Seniors - Columbus Dispatch

Best of the Blogs
Tim Russert - The Corner
Void - Taylor Marsh
Let's Get Something Straight - Balloon Juice
Rudy's Piece of the Action - Talking Points Memo
McCain and 'Privatizing' Social Security - Outside The Beltway

• Color Test: Where Whites Draw the Line
• The Nation: A Not Very Private Feud Over Terrorism
• The Nation: The Wiki-Way to the Nomination

Many Historians See Little Chance for McCain - David Paul Kuhn, Politico
Obama's Real Electoral Challenge - Noemie Emery, Weekly Standard
Age Becomes the New Race and Gender - Adam Nagourney, New York Times
Can Obama Cut Into the Evangelical Vote? - Maureen Callahan, NY Post
Do Angry Clinton Women Love McCain? - Frank Rich, New York Times
Baseball Error and Its Political Lessons - George Will, Houston Chronicle
The Obama Fundraising Model - William Schneider, National Journal
Guantanamo and the Limits of Power - Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune
Diminishing Coverage of Success in Iraq - Debra Saunders, SF Chronicle
Perot Returns, Charts and All - David Broder, Washington Post
The Fed Doesn't Rise - Robert Novak, Chicago Sun-Times
A War Worth Fighting - Christopher Hitchens, Newsweek
Europe's Slide Toward Irrelevance - Robert Kagan, Washington Post
Goodbye to the European Constitution - John Rentoul, The Independent
A Blind Eye to Terror in Zimbabwe - Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe
Keith Olbermann: One Angry Man - Peter Boyer, New Yorker
The Teachings of Dad - Colin McNickle, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Remembering Russert: S. Forbes | K. Couric | W. Kristol | H. Kurtz

Editorials
Democrats Wrong on Partnership With Iraq - Washington Post
McCain Using Hillary's Failed Strategy - Washington Times
Hugo Chavez, New and Improved - New York Times
We Could Use a Perot - Los Angeles Times

Political News & Analysis
Obama Battles 'Speechmaker' Label - New York Times
At Obama's Former Church, Hurt Lingers - Washington Post
Sundays After Russert - The Politico
In '74 Thesis, Seeds of McCain's War Views - New York Times

Obama's Remarks on Retirement Security - Barack Obama
Politicians React to Russert's Death - MSNBC
Panel Remembers Russert - Special Report w/Brit Hume
Shields & Brooks Remember Tim Russert - The NewsHour
Journalists & Politicians on Russert - Larry King Live

Best of the Blogs
Stay Classy, Chris Matthews - Hot Air
Iowa's "Katrina"? - TigerHawk
McCain Tries to Play Dems for Fools (Again) - Carpetbagger Report
Rule of the Gun or the Rule of Law - Jesus' General
Obama Has Black Conservatives Conflicted - Outside The Beltway

Can McCain Remain Competitive?
Ned Barnett
If money is the mother's milk of politics, then Senator John McCain seems intent on going on a hunger strike. More

McCain and the Bitter Conservatives
Andrew Sumereau
John McCain is clearly the preferable option for conservative voters come November though he is detested, and deservedly so, by many Republicans. More

Why Irish Voters Rejected the Lisbon Treaty
Soeren Kern
Irish voters on June 12 said 'No' to the superpower ambitions of European political elites. Here's how that shock to the eurocrats came about. More

Expect a flood of similar images of Obama
June 15, 2008
The MSM will make its invidious comparison through pictrues. More

Congrats to China: New #1 Emitter of Greenhouse Gasses
June 15, 2008
What's remarkable isn't that China is now the world's #1 producer of greenhouse gasses. The truly unbelievable thing is that Al Gore and his minions criticized the United States severely for not signing the Kyoto agreement. More

Another key Dem uninterested in being Obama's VP
June 15, 2008
Former Virginia governor Mark Warner has ruled himself out as Barack Obama's running mate. More

WaPo editorial criticizes Dems on Iraq
June 15, 2008
More evidence accumulates that even the press sees that American policy in Iraq has not just turned the corner, but is heading for success. More

A.Q. Khan Ring May have Shared Bomb Designs
June 15, 2008
A group of smugglers connected to selling bomb parts to Libya, Iran, and North Korea, may have acquired blueprints to build a bomb and shared it with other countries and rogue groups says a former UN arms inspector: More

New Effort To Bag Osama Bin Laden
June 15, 2008
With the help of British special forces and the cooperation of the Pakistani government, coalition forces are moving through some of the most inhospitable terrain on planet earth in hopes of cornering him: More

WaPo: those anti-Obama meanies hurt his church
June 15, 2008
Once again the press attempts to make criticism of Barack Obama and his (now former) church out of bounds. More

Obama's Idea of 'New Politics'
June 15, 2008
Playing the race card early and often. More

Exploiting Russert's death
June 15, 2008
Media coverage of Tim Russert's death, still going strong, is becoming quite unseemly. In a frantic rush to burnish their own social credentials, scores of B and C list players are desperately maneuvering to get coveted national face time. More

More Words of Wisdom from the Democrat's 'Genius' Candidate
June 14, 2008
Barack Obama once again embarrasses himself with his poor grasp of history. More

Judicial temperament?
June 14, 2008
A poster of Che Guevara hangs on the wall of a judge who found Ohio's death penalty law constitutionally lacking. More

NYT flacking for Castro
June 14, 2008
Memories of the recently departed ABC sportscaster Jim McKay provided the New York Times an opportunity to celebrate the "human side" of Fidel Castro. More

How Do America's Super-Rich Get Away With Acting Like 'Just Folks'?

By Doug Henwood, The Nation

Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace: Class conflict was a lot more open, on both sides of the divide, a century ago. Where's the outrage today?

$300 Billion Down the Tubes: Shocking Wasteful Spending on Weapons Systems

Nick Penniman, American News Project

Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace: Video: The Pentagon spends hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons systems, but troops still aren't getting what they need.

Matthew Rothschild:
It’s Conyers’s Time to Act on Impeachment


Peter Hart:
The Press Corps’ Unshakeable Crush on McCain

The Impeachment Process: Why Not Nancy? - by Cindy Sheehan - 2008-06-14

Video: New evidence about 9/11 - by Prof. David Ray Griffin - 2008-06-15

9/11, Deep State Violence and the Hope of Internet Politics - by Prof. Peter Dale Scott - 2008-06-11 The unthinkable – that elements inside the state would conspire with criminals to kill innocent civilians – has become thinkable...

The Big O
Christopher Chantrill
Like Peggy Lee in "Is That All There Is," conservatives keep wondering if they are missing something about the Democratic presumptive presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama. More

Conservatives Must Not Practice the Politics of Despair
J.R. Dunn
2008, we're told, is a "transformational" election, a revolutionary moment in which everything that went before will be overturned, and the nation's entire political sphere utterly changed. Not so fast. More

Top 10 reasons to blame Democrats for soaring gasoline prices
William Tate
This started out as an attempt to create a light and humorous, Letterman-esque list. Turns out it is tragic. More

Expect a flood of similar images of Obama
June 15, 2008
The MSM will make its invidious comparison through pictrues. More

Congrats to China: New #1 Emitter of Greenhouse Gasses
June 15, 2008
What's remarkable isn't that China is now the world's #1 producer of greenhouse gasses. The truly unbelievable thing is that Al Gore and his minions criticized the United States severely for not signing the Kyoto agreement. More

Another key Dem uninterested in being Obama's VP
June 15, 2008
Former Virginia governor Mark Warner has ruled himself out as Barack Obama's running mate. More

WaPo editorial criticizes Dems on Iraq
June 15, 2008
More evidence accumulates that even the press sees that American policy in Iraq has not just turned the corner, but is heading for success. More

A.Q. Khan Ring May have Shared Bomb Designs
June 15, 2008
A group of smugglers connected to selling bomb parts to Libya, Iran, and North Korea, may have acquired blueprints to build a bomb and shared it with other countries and rogue groups says a former UN arms inspector: More

New Effort To Bag Osama Bin Laden
June 15, 2008
With the help of British special forces and the cooperation of the Pakistani government, coalition forces are moving through some of the most inhospitable terrain on planet earth in hopes of cornering him: More

WaPo: those anti-Obama meanies hurt his church
June 15, 2008
Once again the press attempts to make criticism of Barack Obama and his (now former) church out of bounds. More

Obama's Idea of 'New Politics'
June 15, 2008
Playing the race card early and often. More

Exploiting Russert's death
June 15, 2008
Media coverage of Tim Russert's death, still going strong, is becoming quite unseemly. In a frantic rush to burnish their own social credentials, scores of B and C list players are desperately maneuvering to get coveted national face time. More

More Words of Wisdom from the Democrat's 'Genius' Candidate
June 14, 2008
Barack Obama once again embarrasses himself with his poor grasp of history. More

Judicial temperament?
June 14, 2008
A poster of Che Guevara hangs on the wall of a judge who found Ohio's death penalty law constitutionally lacking. More

NYT flacking for Castro
June 14, 2008
Memories of the recently departed ABC sportscaster Jim McKay provided the New York Times an opportunity to celebrate the "human side" of Fidel Castro. More

Iraq takes a turn towards Tehran

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has suddenly started to play hard ball with Washington over the United States' long-term presence in Iraq. Torn between appeasing the US, which brought him to power, and pleasing his patrons and fellow Shi'ites in Tehran, Maliki is bowing to the latter, with ominous consequences. - Sami Moubayed (Jun 16, '08)

Iran's 'dance' of nuclear packages
Iran is considering yet another package of incentives over its nuclear program. Like the others before it from the six major countries dealing with Tehran, this one is likely to stick over uranium-enrichment activities, unless the two sides can seriously work on "commonalities", such as a consortium to produce nuclear fuel for Iran. - Kaveh L Afrasiabi (Jun 16, '08)

Deal, deal, deal with Iran
Washington cannot afford to ignore Iran, nor can the United States overrun it, so the answer is to "deal with it", argues veteran US diplomat James Dobbins. He has also "rejected the theory that the threat of force is a necessary prerequisite to successful diplomacy" - the first high-profile challenge to this central tenet of US national security in place since the end of the Cold War. - Gareth Porter (Jun 16, '08)

What Hillary Won By Losing - John Heilemann, New York Magazine
Mapping the 2008 Battlegrounds - Peter Brown, Wall Street Journal
Obama, Trumping Despair, Can Win Comfortably - Al Hunt, Bloomberg
How Many Senate Seats Will Dems Pick Up? - John Gizzi, Human Events
Bush Tax Cuts a 'Poison Pill' - Paul Krugman, New York Times
McCain and Obama Trade Blows Over Iraq - Stephen Hayes, Wkly Standard
McCain's Chicken Barack Strategy - Steve Kornacki, New York Observer
Why the Christian Right Fears Obama - Dan Gilgoff, USA Today
When Faith is Front and Center - Douglas Kmiec, Chicago Tribune
The Mythology of Munich 1938 - Evan Thomas, Newsweek
Democracies Can't Compromise on Core Values - Natan Sharansky, WSJ
Pakistan's Plea For Patience - Jackson Diehl, Washington Post
We Need a Better Map of the World - Sens. Feingold & Hagel, Miami Herald
Fixing Our Covert Branches - David Ignatius, Washington Post
The Media's Man Crush on John McCain - James Wolcott, Vanity Fair
Preaching Envy as Gospel - Ralph Reiland, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Why Running Mates Matter - Joshua Spivak, Christian Science Monitor
Should Obama Pick Hillary?: Yes - Ed Kilgore | No - Tom Schaller

Editorials
Iraq Starts to Fix Itself - The Economist
U.S., Europe United Toward Iran - Dallas Morning News
Virginia Ain't Purple Yet - Richmond Times-Dispatch
Articles of Impeachment - Philadelphia Inquirer

Political News & Analysis
In Sermon, Obama Calls On Fathers - Chicago Tribune
Can McCain Compete with Obama Online? - The Politico
Obama To Focus on Bolstering Michigan's Future - Detroit News
Obama the Delegator Picks When to Take Reins - New York Times

Transcripts & Speeches


Obama's Speech on Fatherhood - Barack Obama
Brokaw & Co. Remember Russert - Meet the Press
Energy Discussion & Russert Remembered - Fox News Sunday
Interview with Gov. Bobby Jindal (PDF) - Face the Nation
Interview with FEMA Director Paulison - Late Edition

Best of the Blogs
AP Gets Worried - Newshoggers
Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms - Race 4 2008
Hateful Leftists and Arab Paranoids - Glenn Greenwald
Far Right Pushing the Wrong VP - The Strata-Sphere
Obama the Organizer - The Corner

Is the U.S. Really in a Recession? - Anatole Kaletsky, Times of London
Bernanke Is Not About to Raise Rates - Robert Novak, Chicago Sun-Times
Ben Bernanke Still Doesn't Get It - Bill Fleckenstein, MSNMoney
Our Tarnished Banking Titans - Sebastian Mallaby, Washington Post
The iPhone's Impact on Rivals - Olga Kharif, BusinessWeek

Many Historians See Little Chance for McCain
- David Paul Kuhn, Politico
Keith Olbermann: One Angry Man
- Peter Boyer, New Yorker
Obama's Real Electoral Challenge
- Noemie Emery, Weekly Standard
Perot Returns, Charts and All
- David Broder, Washington Post

Obama The Delegator Picks When To Take Reins - New York Times

• The Huffington Post | politicalbetting.com |

Can McCain Compete With Obama Online? - The Politico

• Marathon Pundit | MyDD :: Direct Democ... | “7.62mm Justic... |

Obama Sharply Assails Absent Black Fathers - New York Times

• PrairiePundit | Balloon Juice | The Carpetbagger Report | ORblogs - Oregon's I... |

3 Likely Candidates Express Little Interest In VP (AP) - Yahoo News

Obama camp sees possible win withou... Barack Obama's campaign envisions a path to the presidency that could include Vi...

Obama finds refuge, identity in bas... Confined to the bench back in his high school basketball days, Barack Obama felt...

Today on the presidential campaign ... IN THE HEADLINESObama wants to replace White House bowling alley with basketball...

IRAQ
Negotiating A Neverending War
On Friday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told reporters in Amman, Jordan that negotiations over initial U.S. proposals for bilateral political and military agreements between the United States and Iraq had "reached a dead end" after U.S. negotiators demanded "control of Iraqi airspace and immunity from prosecution for U.S. troops and private contractors." BBC reports the disagreement between Maliki and U.S. negotiators "goes to the heart of the immensely sensitive issue of who is actually in charge in the country: the Americans or the Iraqis." "The Iraqi demands are unacceptable to the Americans, and the American demands are unacceptable to the Iraqis," Maliki said. "Iraqis will not consent to an agreement that infringes their sovereignty." The disposition of the negotiations will determine the future of the U.S. involvement in Iraq. Last week, members of the two ruling Shia parties leaked details of the U.S. proposal, telling McClatchy News that the United States is "demanding 58 bases as part of [an] agreement that will allow U.S. troops to remain in the country indefinitely."

THE FUTURE U.S.-IRAQ RELATIONSHIP: A new agreement is necessary to legalize the U.S. presence in Iraq after the United Nations mandate expires at the end of 2008. In November 2007, President Bush and Maliki signed a non-binding "Declaration of Principles for a Long-Term Relationship of Cooperation and Friendship" that set out parameters for negotiating an "enduring" political, economic, cultural, and security relationship between the United States and Iraq. The Bush administration said that the proposed agreement would not be submitted to Congress for approval, with one analyst noting that this was "purely an executive agreement." However, critics have pointed out that status of forces agreements have not traditionally committed the United States to guarantee the security of other countries. In testimony to Congress in March, the Center for American Progress's Lawrence Korb stated that the agreement was "substantially broader in scope than standard Status of Forces Agreements. The fact that the administration does not intend to submit the agreement for congressional approval is a testament to their own recognition of how the broad the implications of this agreement are." The United States has similar agreements with numerous countries where American soldiers are stationed on foreign soil, like South Korea, Japan, and Germany, but "none involve soldiers carrying out active combat operations."

IRAQI POLITICIANS UNITED AGAINST: The proposed agreement has met with vocal political opposition in Iraq. Ironically, while genuine movement toward Iraqi political reconciliation has been elusive, a diverse coalition has formed in opposition to the agreement. In Washington, D.C. two weeks ago, Sunni parliamentarian Sheik Khalef al-Ulayyan said, "When we look at this treaty, we don't just think it's a treaty that affirms the occupation of Iraq. ... It looks like a treaty that will be the annexation of Iraq to the United States." In a letter to Congress, more than 30 members of Iraq's Parliament rejected any agreement that is not "linked to clear mechanisms that obligate the occupying America military forces to fully withdraw from Iraq, in accordance with a declared timetable and without leaving behind any military bases, soldiers or hired fighters." A representative of Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Sistani reported that Sistani had told Maliki that "everything should be done to get back total [Iraqi] sovereignty on all levels." Supporters of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have held regular protests against the agreement, and Sadr has called for the agreement to be put to a popular referendum. Iran has also registered displeasure with the proposed agreement, with Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, telling Maliki that the presence of U.S. troops was "the main obstacle on the way to progress and prosperity in Iraq." Iranian leaders have expressed concern that U.S. troops stationed in Iraq could be used in an eventual attack on Iran. Underscoring the careful line that Maliki must tread between his Iranian neighbor and American sponsor, Iraqi and Iranian defense ministers recently "signed a memorandum of understanding to boost defense cooperation" between the two countries.

THE FUTURE OF THE US IN THE MIDDLE EAST: The conclusion of the proposed agreement with the Iraqi government will have broad implications for the future U.S. military posture in the Middle East. Establishing bases in Iraq from which to project American power through the region has been one of the underlying goals of the war from its inception, and partially explains why the United States has been willing to accommodate parties such as Maliki's Da'wa and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (who are close to Iran but also support U.S. goals), at least in the short term. Conservative pundit Dick Morris spoke for much of the pro-war community when he told Fox News that, after 4,000 American casualties in Iraq, "I want bases out of that." If the administration gets its way, American troops would be stationed in the heart of the Middle East for the foreseeable future -- likely fueling continued extremist anti-American sentiment and political unrest. This highlights the tension between the U.S. goals of a democratic Iraq and a continued U.S. military presence in Iraq. For that presence to be legal and legitimate, it must be subject to agreement by the Iraqi government. But it is extremely unlikely that any Iraqi government that agrees to an extended U.S. presence -- especially on the terms the U.S. is currently demanding -- will be viewed as legitimate by the Iraqi people.

ETHICS -- JUSTICE DEPARTMENT FILES GRAND JURY REFERRAL IN U.S. ATTORNEY SCANDAL INVESTIGATION: "Justice Department lawyers have filed a grand jury referral stemming from the 2006 U.S. attorneys scandal," the Wall Street Journal reports, "the first time the probe has moved beyond the investigative phase." The referral focuses on possible perjury by Bradley Schlozman. Schlozman had worked in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, but left last year "after he was challenged over his hiring of conservative lawyers" at the division. Schlozman also faced criticism for, as a U.S. attorney, charging a left-leaning voter-registration group with voter fraud days before the 2006 election. Last June, Schlozman admitted to a Senate panel that he had boasted about the number of Republicans he had hired to the division, and had changed performance evaluations of those employees "not perceived to be Bush administration loyalists." Schlozman was promoted to U.S. attorney in Kansas City after his predecessor, Todd Graves, was fired after showing "reluctance to bring voter-fraud-related cases." Testifying before Congress last October, a former Civil Rights Division employee said the "decline and the myriad other problems that have plagued" the Justice department "are a direct result of the actions of political appointees such as...Bradley Schlozman."

TORTURE -- INVESTIGATION FINDS WIDESPREAD ABUSE IN AFGHANISTAN DETENTION CENTERS: An eight-month McClatchy investigation has found systematic torture and mistreatment of detainees in detention centers throughout Afghanistan, starting in 2001 and lasting at least 20 months. Sixty-eight percent of former detainees interviewed reported being assaulted in Afghanistan, a rate higher than the 42 percent of cases in Guantanamo Bay. Detainees said abuse ranged from being baptized by prison guards dressed as Roman Catholic priests to being "chained hand and foot in a fetal position on the floor" and "left there for 18, 24 hours or more." While most press attention has focused on the detention center at the Soviet-built Bagram Airbase, where two detainees were beaten to death by guards in December 2002, former detainees of internment centers in Kandahar also reported being hit by guards on a regular basis during the same period. Though the Department of Defense maintains that such detainee abuse is isolated, prison guards say they were deployed to Afghanistan with inadequate training, were placed in an environment where the rules were unclear, and in the absence of supervision, "everybody hit their boiling point."

ENVIRONMENT -- BUSH ADMINISTRATION GIVES OIL COMPANIES A PASS TO HARM POLAR BEARS: Last week, the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) issued regulations allowing seven oil companies to annoy and potentially harm polar bears while searching for oil and gas in the Arctic's Chukchi Sea. These regulations, which include legal protection for the incidental harm of "small numbers" of polar bears, come despite the Interior Department's decision last month to list polar bears as a threatened species because of habitat loss due to global warming. Even though "vibrations, noises, unusual scents and the presence of industrial equipment can disrupt" polar bears' "quest for prey and their efforts to raise their young in snow dens," the FWS said "oil and gas exploration will have a negligible effect on the bears' population." "The oil and gas industry in operating under the kind of rules they have operated under for 15 years has not been a threat to the species," claimed FWS director H. Dale Hall. Environmentalists, however, are calling the regulations a "blank check" for the oil companies to harass polar bears. Prior to this decision, environmental groups had announced a "plan to sue the federal government for not imposing new regulations on oil development in Alaska's Arctic waters as part of offering protective status to polar bears."

The group blog of The American Prospect
Obama and the teachers' unions.[/color]
Posted at 10:53 a.m.


A respectable liberal blog
Unions and productivity.
Posted at 10:46 a.m.


Dean Baker's economic commentary
[color="#800000"]The Washington Post misses the housing bubble yet again.

How our Marxist faculties got that way
Edward Bernard Glick
Straight talk from someone who saw it all. More

Conservatives must act
James Lewis
"These are the times that try men's souls," wrote Thomas Paine on December 23, 1776. It was a deeply demoralizing time for American independence fighters, with Gen. George Washington in constant retreat, always just managing to dodge defeat by the... More

'It Will Almost Certainly Cause More Americans to Be Killed'
Joel J. Sprayregen
The Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling last week means that terrorism detainees captured overseas have the same rights as U.S. citizens facing shoplifting trials at home. More

Boeing wins a round in the Air Force tanker dispute
June 16, 2008
The Air Force decision to source its next generation tanker fleet from a Northrop-Airbus consortium did not go down well with a wide-ranging group of people. More

Brown Comes through on Iran Sanctions, Afghan Troop increase
June 16, 2008
Taking office with echoes of "lap dog" following his predecessor Tony Blair, many wondered just how committed Brown would be to the "Special Relationship" between the US and Great Britain More

Newt: Jindal for Veep
June 16, 2008
Hopefully, Newt Gingrich has even less influence with John McCain than he thinks More

Countrywide 'Sweetheart Loans' Tied to Legislation
June 16, 2008
Not making many headlines because the perps are Democrats, the sweetheart loan deals that former Obama Vice Presidential vetter Jim Johnson accepted from Countrywide Chairman Angelo Mozilo have ensnared two Democratic senators; More

Dude, where's my bounce?
June 16, 2008
Gallup reports that Barack Obama's 7 point bounce after presumably clinching the nomination has all but vanished into a statistical tie with McCain More

AP in Huge Blow-up over 'Fair Use' of their stories
June 16, 2008
This is a story that is an object lesson for mainstream news organizations as well as new media watchers. More

Innoculating Michelle Obama from Criticism
June 16, 2008
Don't be a "Michelle hater." More

A telling choice by NBC News
June 16, 2008
The biggest dilemma NBC had in announcing the sudden passing of Tim Russert was the lack of anyone in their news department with enough stature to "break the news". More

A prediction come true. Already.
June 16, 2008
Predictions are fun, never more so than when they come to pass, and it's even better when it happens immediately so that everybody notices. More

Expect a flood of similar images of Obama (updated)
June 15, 2008
The MSM will make its invidious comparison through pictrues. More

Congrats to China: New #1 Emitter of Greenhouse Gasses
June 15, 2008
What's remarkable isn't that China is now the world's #1 producer of greenhouse gasses. The truly unbelievable thing is that Al Gore and his minions criticized the United States severely for not signing the Kyoto agreement. More

Another key Dem uninterested in being Obama's VP
June 15, 2008
Former Virginia governor Mark Warner has ruled himself out as Barack Obama's running mate. More

Bush Inspires Least World Confidence: Jim Lobe

Al-Qaeda Is Like Trotsky: Irrelevant: Tony Karon

Empire or Republic?: Robert Scheer

Myth-makers caught in oil speculation

As consumers demand to know why they are paying more at the pump speculators are being singled out as the bogeymen in the fuel markets. Their culpability is only one of the myths surrounding the doubling of oil prices over the past year. The slippery facts point elsewhere, while above all lies the cruel reality that it is hard to keep an unsubstitutable commodity down for long. - R M Cutler (Jun 17, '08)

Iran says oil price artificial (AFP)

Has Affirmative Action Run Its Course? - Jonathan Kaufman, WSJ
Obama Raises Hopes for Fatherhood - E. J. Dionne, Houston Chronicle
McCain's Posturing on Guantanamo - George Will, Washington Post
The Supreme Court Goes to War - John Yoo, Wall Street Journal
Bush Made the World a Safer Place - Oliver Kamm, The Guardian
The Unraveling of Joe Lieberman - Jonathan Chait, The New Republic
Democratic Unity Still Out of Reach - Matthew Dallek, The Politico
Return of the Censors - Pat Buchanan, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Will Gay Rights Trample Religious Freedom? - Marc Stern, LA Times
The Rising Influence of Hugo Chávez - Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker
Why 'Anti-Proliferation' is Doomed - Arthur Herman, New York Post
What America Still Owes Iraq - Jean Bethke Elshtain, World Affairs
Pity the Poor Eurocrats - Anne Applebaum, Washington Post
What Made Tim Russert Special - Thomas Sowell, RealClearPolitics
The Frozen Gaze of Tiger Woods - David Brooks, New York Times
George Soros on Housing and the Economy - Philippe Gohier, Macleans
School Choice Under Attack Because It Works - David Keene, The Hill
RCP Blog: AM Report / Politics Nation: Strat Memo: Offshore & Gore

Editorials
The EU Reveals Its Anti-Democratic Nature - Daily Telegraph
Keep D.C.'s Vouchers Program Going - Washington Post
California Leads the Way in Gay Marriage - Chicago Sun-Times
The Democrats' Torture Gambit - Wall Street Journal

Political News & Analysis
Gore Endorses Obama - New York Times
Obama Plans Spending Boost - Wall Street Journal
Is McCain Like Bush? It Depends - New York Times
McCain Wants Drilling Ban Lifted - The Politico

Best of the Blogs
The Lousy Timing of Al Gore - The Moderate Voice
How Obama Can Win Over Seniors - Huffington Post
Veepstakes: When It Comes to Saying 'No' - The Fix
Is Kansas in Play? - MyDD
McCain Cancels Clayton Williams Fundraiser - Burnt Orange Report

MoveOn.org Strikes MoveOn.org has just released a new anti-McCain ad that's sure to cause quite a s... Obama Responds To McCain's Offshore... In a released statement, Obama responds to McCain's plan to lift the offshore dr... The Morning Report In the Headlines: "Poll Finds Independent Voters Split Between McCain, Obama" (D...

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
'Yesterday's Man' Leaves Europe
President Bush concluded his farewell journey through Europe in Belfast, Northern Ireland yesterday with attempts at rapprochement with leaders throughout the continent. "[L]ots has changed" since 2003, London School of Economics international relations professor Michael Cox noted. While Bush enjoyed warmer relations with Germany, Italy, and France -- mainly due to leadership changes in those countries -- most Europeans, like many Americans, are suffering from "Bush fatigue," as they are looking forward to the next president and "will be glad to see the back" of Bush. Anti-American sentiment in Europe runs high as a result of Bush's leadership. A recent poll by London's Daily Telegraph newspaper found that "[m]ore people in France, Germany and Britain view the United States as a 'force for evil' than good in the world." And despite Bush's seeming friendly relationship with conservative German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany's leading news source Der Spiegel reported last week that "senior politicians from Merkel's ruling grand coalition as well as from opposition parties have done away with diplomatic niceties, seizing on Bush's farewell visit to express their aversion to the president who remains vilified in Germany for launching the Iraq war."

CAN'T BE BOTHERED TO BOO: Because of his rejection of the Kyoto Protocol and other multilateral measures, Bush was a "popular villain" to many Europeans even before the Iraq war, which ultimately caused his popularity there to bottom out. Though Bush was met with "boisterous demonstrations" when he first visited Slovenia in 2001, "only a few small, loosely organized protests were planned" when he arrived there last week for the European Union summit, a reflection of the "deep-seated apathy for a president increasingly viewed as yesterday's man." Many Slovenes "expressed a growing disinterest in Bush, coupled with a keen interest in who will replace him at the White House." In Germany, no one "bothered to keep a six-year tradition alive by organizing" to protest Bush. "Bush is not even popular in the role of the enemy anymore," wrote Der Tagesspiegel newspaper. Rome "braced for violent protests against Bush, with 10,000 police mobilized and hundreds of prisoners being moved out of the Regina Coeli prison to make room for arrested demonstrators." Yet as Bush's arrival in Italy came and went, Rome's prison cells "remained empty" as the protests "numbered no more than 2,000 people, most of whom went home when it began to rain." A respectable but relatively small crowed turned out in Paris for demonstrations and across the English Channel, about 2,500 demonstrators gathered in London to greet Bush, a far cry from the "hundreds of thousands who marched down Whitehall during his state visit in 2003."

REBUILDING THE ALLIANCE: Before Bush left for Europe, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley played down any expectations that Bush would produce any "breakthroughs" with his European counterparts: "I don't think you're going to see dramatic announcements on this trip," Hadley noted. While reality played out much of Hadley's prediction, some European leaders appeared agreeable on some major issues, indicating the possibility of a stronger and more effective post-Bush trans-Atlantic partnership. Merkel, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged unity in confronting Iran's nuclear program, while British Prime Minister Gordon Brown went a step further agreeing to tighten sanctions on Iran and urging his EU partners to do the same. However, the Iranian government preempted any increased sanctions by moving $75 billion in assets "from Western financial institutions to banks in Iran and Asia." But Brown also pledged to increase Britain's troop level in Afghanistan with "about 230 engineers, logistical staff and military trainers" and said the U.K. would keep most of the its 4,500 troops in southern Iraq "until the situation is stable enough to withdraw them." While Brown appears to have acquiesced to Bush's recent demand that "there should be no definitive timetable" for withdrawal from Iraq, the U.K. was expected to cut its troop levels there to just a few hundred by this time next year.

A 'SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP' DAMAGED: In an interview with the Times of London at the outset of his trip, Bush admitted "that his gun-slinging rhetoric made the world believe that he was a 'guy really anxious for war' in Iraq," expressing "regret at the bitter divisions over the war." The Times reported that Bush now aims "to leave his successor a legacy of international diplomacy for tackling Iran." Yet Bush's attempt to heal old wounds seemed to fall on deaf ears. The London Independent issued a scathing editorial today reflecting on Bush's visit and his presidency: "[P]erhaps Mr. Bush's most significant legacy, as far as Britain is concerned, will be the destruction of the instinctive trust of America and its leaders that once prevailed here. It is no exaggeration to say that Mr. Bush has done more damage to relations between our two nations than any president in living memory. This rupture is not an accident of circumstance; there are no impersonal forces of history to blame. This sorry state of affairs is the consequence of the actions of a single leader and his small coterie of advisers. ... And whatever the future holds for transatlantic relations, there will be very few in this country who watched President Bush's plane depart yesterday without a feeling of profound relief that the end of this disastrous presidency is finally in sight."

ETHICS -- WAXMAN REQUESTS CONTRACTING FRAUD INVESTIGATION: House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) requested in a letter yesterday that the Defense Department Inspector General (IG) begin investigating what could be thousands of criminal cases involving fraudulent contracts in Iraq. A May 22 IG report on contracting fraud examined a sampling of contracts, with 4 percent resulting in criminal referrals. In his letter, Waxman wrote that when extrapolated "to the entire pool of 180,000 transactions, it appears that there may be more than 7,000 potential criminal cases involving more than $190 million in federal spending that have not been identified...an astounding amount of potential criminal fraud." Last week the AP reported that the military doesn't have enough staff to fully investigate fraud. Although the Army contracting budget has nearly doubled since 2002, from $46 billion to $112 billion -- "the number of people who hunt down crooked companies and corrupt officials has stayed about the same," with fewer than 100 agents assigned to the Army Criminal Investigation Command fraud unit.

MILITARY -- VETERANS RECRUITED FOR TESTING ON DRUGS LINKED TO SUICIDE AND VIOLENCE: A Washington Times/ABC News investigation released today finds that "mentally distressed veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are being recruited for government tests on pharmaceutical drugs linked to suicide and other violent side effects." During one experiment, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) took three months to alert patients of the "severe mental side effects" associated with Chantrix, an anti-smoking drug being tested. According to the report, U.S. Army sniper James Elliott, who has been diagnosed with PTSD and was given $30 per month to take Chantrix, suffered a "severe mental breakdown" and was arrested after walking the streets with a loaded gun. Elliott described himself as a "lab rat, guinea pig, disposable hero," adding that "they never told me that I was going to be suicidal, that I would cease sleeping." Arthur Caplan, one of the nation's top medical ethicists, told the Washington Times that Elliot's treatment was "a pretty serious breach of ethics." Miles McFall, the VA's director of programs for PTSD sufferers, blamed the three month delay in notifying the patients of potential problems with Chantrix on government bureaucracy, saying it was an" incredibly quick response for a governmental institution."

ADMINISTRATION -- BUSH SAYS CRITICIZING U.S. ACTIONS AT ABU GHRAIB IS 'SLANDERING AMERICA': During an interview with Britain's Sky News Monday, President Bush declared, "I believe in the universality of freedom." Sky News reporter Adam Boulton noted that many of the Bush administration's policies on torture and detention represent "the exact opposite of freedom," pointing to Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and rendition and replied, "Of course, if you want to slander America." Bush defended Guantanamo, telling the reporter he should "go down to Guantanamo and take a look at how these prisoners are treated" to see that the U.S. is "a land of law." Bush also said that Abu Ghraib was simply "the actions of some soldiers." In fact, today a new Senate investigation reveals that Pentagon lawyers were directly involved in creating an abusive interrogation program for Guantanamo detainees that included stress positions, sleep deprivation, and waterboarding. A McClatchy investigation found that these practices led to the radicalization of Guantanamo detainees and created more terrorists. Furthermore, as ABC News reported in April, top members of Bush's administration, including Vice President Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, explicitly signed off on abusive interrogations.

What Should We Do Next in Iraq? - Thomas Friedman, New York Times
Perception vs. Reality on the Economy - Neil Irwin, Washington Post
Western Democracy in Decline - Tony Blankley, Washington Times
Learning from the Oil Shock - Robert Samuelson, Newsweek
Straightening Out McCain's Straight Talk - John Dickerson, Slate
A McCain-Lieberman Ticket? - Walter Shapiro, Salon
France's Whirlwind of Change - Jim Hoagland, Washington Post
Russert Took Media Bias Seriously - Bernard Goldberg, Wall Street Journal
Marines vs. Haditha Smear Merchants - Michelle Malkin, New York Post
Was Idea Behind Facebook Stolen? - Claire Hoffman, Rolling Stone
The Second Death of the U.S. Airlines - Holman Jenkins, Wall St. Journal
How Imbalances Led to Credit Crunch, Inflation - Martin Wolf, Fin. Times
Drug Myths and the War on Drugs - John Stossel, RealClearPolitics
The Quiet Rebellion in Europe - John O'Sullivan, New York Post
Has Affirmative Action Run Its Course? - Jonathan Kaufman, WSJ
Obama Raises Hopes for Fatherhood - E. J. Dionne, Houston Chronicle
McCain's Posturing on Guantanamo - George Will, Washington Post